Whey protein hydrolysates as a source of bioactive peptides for functional foods - Biotechnological facilitation of industrial scale-up

Whey proteins, which possess the highest nutritional quality of all food proteins, are an optimal source of functional food ingredients. Enzymatic hydrolysis of whey proteins liberates fragments that can promote health benefits in the immune, cardiovascular, nervous and gastrointestinal systems. Industrial production of peptide based food ingredients requires overcoming several challenges in product development to achieve economically viable downstream processes. We suggest hybrid strategies currently utilized in biopharmacy that are based on computational modelling combined with heuristics and mechanistic modelling, thus minimizing the time- and cost-intensive trial and error approach. Additionally, we propose an application of a cost performance indicator during early decisions at the laboratory scale, which can lead to optimal downstream processing of bioactive, peptide-based food ingredients. This review summarizes the requirements of industrial processes regarding peptide release and stability, depending on several process parameters, and considers some enrichment techniques for whey-derived peptides that are potentially applicable to industry.